My life took an unexpected turn awhile ago (~2004)...into a dojo! I took my son to karate and found that I didn't much like being a spectator. I started at age 46. By 50, I was wearing a black belt. At 52, I added a 2nd stripe. The blog was started to help me learn my kata. On my 55th birthday, due to hip problems, I sadly quit the martial arts. I continue to look for sports outlets and wrestle with food, fitness, and health.

My daughter has taken her last class at the dojo for awhile (she earned her black belt this past spring). She leaves for college in Connecticut this Wednesday so Dad is having a full emotional crisis. Sigh. The last year represented a funny transition. For a long time, I had my son in the junior program and I was very involved in the adult program. This past year, my daughter who is also training at the dojo, became close friends with some younger instructors at the dojo. So at times, my instructor at the dojo was also hanging around my house in the evening with my daughter and her friends. At times, I would come down after midnight and have to tell my daughter, instructor, and friends: "Heh, it's after midnight. a little quiet please!"

Looking forward, I don't know if my son will get back involved. If so, he would be in the adult program now so that would be a whole new spin on things.

A second headline is that the dojo has gone through a transition in leadership and has a new name: Elite Force Martial Arts. I may or may not ever publish my thoughts on recent events. I did write-up a post, a sort of eulogy or "Speaker for the Dead" (anybody else read Orson Scott Card?) about the recently deceased (at his own hand) Kyoshi Steve Lavallee. In the words of the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it's been."

I'm sticking with the school and if it weren't for something that's gone wrong with my right hip, I would be a candidate for a third level of black belt. My plan going into the summer was to work intensively on my cardio and flexibility to see if I was ready to go through another cycle. The cardio effort became a series of triathlons that I've really enjoyed. The flexibility effort was increased stretching and some hot yoga classes. This has not been successful. My hip has gone steadily more painful and less useful. So, I've been careful to stay off pain killers but I've backed off the stretching and am going to dig out a hip specialist to give me some direction. The last few months have resulted in some pretty bad pain whenever I try to go through a routine kicking drill so....

Oh, and I joined an online groups of old fart martial artists. No kidding, that's the name of the group. If anyone stops by from there, leave a comment.

Monday, August 20, 2012

First of all, I brought a cousin of my wife's who is a photographer so the quality of the pictures is greatly improved.

Secondly, my time improved but the biggest improvement was in my first transition. Basically, after the last race, a few people took pity on me and offered me some basic guidance. I learned that you are not supposed to wear socks (takes too long to put them on!) and that with elastic laces, you don't have tie and double knot your shoes. These two insights helped me knock 1.3 minutes off my schedule.

Beyond that, I knocked 1.7 minutes off my bike time but it's still pretty slow. I added clips to by pedals so that I could both push and pull and it seemed to help. Also, btw, it's not just about the equipment. I also trained.

My run time also improved but only by a fraction of a minute. I'm a little disappointed here because unlike the previous tri, I actually ran the whole time this time but I guess, to get there, I must have generally dropped by pace.

And, in case anyone cares, here's the specifics of my times and the full race results:

BTW, I finished between Paul and Tim with an even 7 minute spacing. There's another tri coming up Sept 9th which I might enter. And a special thanks for the help with photography, have you seen my post on the Kodak Instamatic?